


Charon's Fee

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2009 [9]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Ghost Whisperer
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Bechdel Test Pass, Death, Gen, Ghosts, Grief, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 09:01:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5122526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melinda guides the dead, but she doesn't know what's on the other side, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charon's Fee

**Author's Note:**

> MountainWilliam requested Ghost Whisperer/Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Buffy & Melinda, _The perspective of someone who’s actually gone into the light and come back._ \- Er, short. I did my best, but I don't like Melinda.
> 
> 2009 repost.

+

Melinda watches the ghost of the week walk into the light, an awed look on his face as he disappears from this plane. She sighs, shakes her head a little and dabs at her eyes. She’s crying again.

Somehow it seems she’s always crying.

Behind her, someone moves, quiet steps on concrete and she whirls around, surprised and a bit scared. Talking to what seems to be thin air doesn’t go over too well with most people and she’d rather not feed the rumor mill even more than she already does, what with being in strange places at strange times, saying strange things.

But the girl standing in the shadows is a stranger. Long blonde hair, small build, fashionable jeans and boots. She smiles and steps forward, seeming undisturbed by what she just witnessed. Melinda fights a nervous flutter in her stomach. The people who aren’t surprised by her gift are usually the ones that cause trouble. She’s had enough of that this month, thanks a lot. 

“You know,” the blonde starts conversationally, hands in the pockets of her pants, looking harmless enough, “I’ve been wondering about all the strange things going on in this town. It’s almost like something’s drawing them here, you know?”

Playing dumb, Melinda asks, “Drawing who here?”

“Ghosts, spirits, haunts. All sorts of human leftovers. I guess I got my answer now.”

“And what would that be?” She tries not to sound defensive but doesn’t quite succeed. 

“You’re some sort of ghost doctor, aren’t you? You see them, help them _find the light_.”

She can _hear_ the quotation marks around the phrase and it makes her cringe. It sounds sappy, but it is what it is and she can’t help that, can’t help what she is and what her destiny is. She helps ghosts. Yes, so what? It makes her angry that everyone laughs at her. She crosses her arms under her chest and demands, a bit snidely, “So you don’t believe in the afterlife? That’s there’s a light at the end of everything?”

The blonde shrugs, her expression wistful instead of condescending. “I don’t have to believe. I know it’s there.”

That’s really not what Melinda was expecting and she’s pretty sure she gapes a bit before regaining control over her features. “You know? How? Can you see it, too?”

That’s the old loneliness speaking, the desire for there to be someone like her, someone who sees all the things she sees. No-one she’s ever met has had quite her scope of abilities. Some hear, some see particular ghosts, some only feel them. Melinda gets the full Technicolor, surround sound experience and it makes her lonely. 

The other woman shakes her head and this time, she looks sad. “I was there once,” she says, very quietly.

She was there? In the light? She was… dead? “How?”

Jumping a bit, the blonde smiles and waves the question off. “Never mind. I came here to find out if there’s anything nasty drawing all these ghosts. Since I got my answer now, there’s no reason to stick around.” 

Finally she pulls one hand out of her pocket and uses it to wave at Melinda. “Be seeing you, Doc,” she tells her and it takes her a moment to catch on to the joke.

Ghost doctor. 

Well, she figures, she’s been called worse. She smiles in return, nods her head once and before she can say ‘spooky’ the other woman’s gone again, leaving Melinda alone in the middle of the night wondering how a living being could have seen the light, how anyone can go there and come back from it. 

Wondering, most of all, what the price for such a return is. 

+


End file.
